


The Muse of Creation

by RoseMagi



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, Redemption, Transhumanism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-10-25 20:33:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20730347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseMagi/pseuds/RoseMagi
Summary: AU where Tarvek goes back for clank Anevka and they get to have a relationship again.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this is really rough, but im a busy lady! I hope you guy like it, it's fairly self indulgent though.

Ever since Tarvek had met Agatha there hadn’t been a lot of time to sit and think, there was so much to do, just to stay alive, one crisis upon another. When he had finally been excavated from the time-stopped Mechanicsburg he did get a few days to recuperate from being pulled out of time, and from being poisoned and stabbed, time to ruminate, to consider, to contemplate.

“Gil I have to go and do something” Tarvek said.  
“Nonsense, what do you have to do, you’ve been in stasis for two years, you should rest before more assassins come for you.”  
“I mean it, get me an aircraft, I’ll hopefully be back soon.”  
“What!? Where are you going!?”  
“Sturmhalten.”

Tarvek landed outside the city in a modest disguise, the city was under Gil’s control of course, but it doesn’t hurt to be disguised when every petty assassin and family member with something to gain is after your head.  
He went past the checkpoint into the city, it is guarded decently well these days. Getting into the castle without announcing his identity would normally be tricky, but the castle was designed with the amount of secret passages typical to spark designed buildings, you couldn’t trip in that building without falling down a trap door or opening a hidden room. He made his way to his former lab, and opened a cabinet.  
The clank’s eyelids opened, looked around, and finally Anevka spoke.

“Am I alive?”, It was a sad question, a resigned question, and frankly a whole lot to get into so Tarvek just said:  
“I don’t know.”  
“Why have you woken me?”  
“I thought you deserved better.”  
“I’m just a ghost in a machine, aren’t I?”  
“That remains to be seen,” Said Tarvek.  
He began attaching her head to one of the earlier versions of her body, since the original was still presumably being used by Lucrezia.  
“What are you doing!? I was going to sell you out, I was going to blame you! Why are you back for me?” Anevka almost cried.  
“I think you can be better than what are family made you.”  
Anevka was confused, her entire life, scratch that, her entire existence, was political and manipulative, her brother shouldn’t be doing this.  
“What if I kill you the second I can. What then!”  
“Don’t worry about that.” Said Tarvek distractedly the commands are still present along with a programmed inability to kill me and a few others.  
Anevka was still confused but the schemer in her did note the phrase “and a few others”.

Anevka had weighed on Tarvek heavily, thought about her constantly, debated the entire nature of life just to figure out what to do about her. He realized in Castle Heterodyne that no one should have control of their life taken away from them, and even if she wasn’t the original Anevka, the “real” Anevka, or maybe even Anevka. She was still something that could think and it was wrong to take that semblance of life.

Anevka didn’t ask to many more questions, she was uncharacteristically silent. Tarvek had brought some of her things, and she put on a warm winter coat, not that she actually needed it, and a red wig. The red wigs always made her feel real, they were the color her hair was when she was alive, she knew that that meant nothing, but it was something. She followed him back to the aircraft solemnly and without making eye contact.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short but there will another chapter within 5 hours

Anevka didn’t feel well. She didn’t know what to think anymore. She didn’t know if she was alive or dead, she no longer had any claim to a throne, and now her brother who she was going to betray brought her back online. The entire situation was just so alien, so against everything she knew she didn’t know what to do.

Tarvek was almost scared while flying back to castle Wulfenbach. He had no idea what to expect, after all there were a lot of philosophical questions about the nature of life going on, but he didn’t expect this. He thought she looked almost pathetic, her legs were pulled up to her chest and she was looking out at the sky.

They flew in silence.

After they landed Gil rushed out onto the airway, “Sturmvoraus there you are I was just about to send someo-” then he saw Anevka, “oh..uh…Hello?”

“Hello Baron Wulfenbach.”Anevka said, she had never met Gil, but Tarvek had told her about him.

“Uh.. Sturmvoraus can I talk to you alone?”

“Yes.” Said Tarvek, sternly.

“Isn’t that your sister that was going to try and pin everything in Sturmhalten on you!? What are you doing!?”

“Most of my family members have tried to kill me, but that doesn’t mean she deserves to sit in a cupboard.”

“Is she even..your sister?” Gil seemed hesitant to ask the question.

“I don’t know.” Tarvek admitted. “But I think she’s somebody.”


	3. Chapter 3

Gil didn’t like having Anevka on Castle Wulfenbach, even after Tarvek told him she was functionally unable to kill him. Ironically this would not be a problem for much longer.

Tarvek was kidnapped in about 30 minutes.

Anevka has very little right now except Tarvek, so she pursued him with an extreme amount of determination. His kidnappers brought him onto another airship, how they got into Wulfenbach airspace wass beyond her, but they managed it somehow. 

She herself was now on the exterior of the airship, her artificial body did not tire nor did it falter, even while hanging from 25,000 feet. She position herself outside a window, they obviously did not want Tarvek dead, so she wanted to gather more information before she struck. 

When Tarvek awakened he immediately realized he had been kidnapped.

From what Anevka could see a man approached offering food, and then Tarvek freed himself and threatened the man with a fork.

“He hasn’t lost his touch” Anevka, muttered to herself, as the air roared around her.

The man revealed that the Incorruptible Library was the one that kidnapped him. Then the Lord High Conservator walked in and had a lengthy conversation with him, mostly about Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, but then about the Other. Anevka relaxed slightly, her mechanical ears were much better than organic ones after all, so she was able to hear the entire situation with great clarity. They wanted him and would not hurt him.

Unfortunately, things got ugly, the smoke knights on board started attacking, Anevka did not react right away since they are, after all, loyal to the Sturmvoraus family, but then they killed the High Conservator.

Anevka silently infiltrated through one of the windows, when the man holding a knife to Tarvek’s throat revealed that it was the family that requested this. “How predictable”, Anevka muttered. 

Tarvek broke a wrench over the man’s head, he clearly was resistant to physical damage and it might be hazardous to approach, but then he threw Tarvek, and that was the last straw.

Anevka snuck up behind him and electrocuted him, this normally would not have worked, but no one had known that Anevka was even a factor, so he went down without even realizing who she could have been.

“Do. Not. Touch. Him.” Anevka almost growled.

Tarvek looked shocked, but relieved. From the moment he woke up he was worried about her, Gil of course wouldn’t hurt her but still he didn’t know where she was. 

“Thank you Anevka.” He said.

Anevka wasn’t used to hearing those words but said .“No problem.”


	4. Chapter 4

Tarvek restrained the man that he now knew as Mr. Obsidian, although he was highly trained Tarvek had the advantage and constructed a cell for the man in record time. Once Mr. Obsidian woke up, he was willing to divulge where he planned to take Tarvek and by whose bequest, despite being very annoyed.

“Anevka.” Tarvek yelled. “We’re going to Paris.”

“Why?” Anevka asked.

“Grandmother wants us there.” Tarvek said defeatedly. He didn’t want to go, but angering his grandmother was one thing he did not like doing.

“Oh dear.” Anevka stated with little emotion. This was a front, secretly she was terrified. Grandmother hadn’t seen her in years and now she was THIS, just a clank, just a machine. To face her grandmother, the matriarch of the entire family, in this form, was unfathomable.

“Don’t worry though, it’ll be a long ride there,” Tarvek said.

“Oh great” Anevka thought to herself, “more time to ruminate.”

It was going to be a long ride, the ship didn’t move as fast as most, meaning at least 2 weeks travel. Anevka didn’t have a lot to do, but being around Tarvek was painful and awkward, it was just too difficult. To keep herself busy she started reading Tarvek’s copy of Van Rijn’s notes. He didn’t want to give them to her, after all she might be trying to undo the failsafes that Tarvek installed to keep her from killing anyone important, but a feat that great would take more time and knowledge than Anevka had, even despite this fact though he was still hesitant. He may be trying to be a more genuine person, but he had still grown up in the family where there were a minimum of 3 assassination attempts at every party.  
He did give them to her though, she seemed so sad these days, and he didn’t have it in him to deny her something that wouldn’t immediately place him in danger.  
Fortunately for Tarvek, Anevka had no plans to undo the failsafes, it didn’t feel good to be a caged bird, but sometimes she worried that all she could be was a manipulative backstabber, this way she couldn’t, even if she wanted.  
Her main purpose in reading the notes was entertainment, or rather distraction, since the tome wasn’t exactly a thrilling story. Astonishingly the library ship had no other books on it, perhaps they preferred to keep their reading confined to the library? She figured she could help Tarvek with maintenance if she could learn enough.  
Anevka was no spark, she wasn’t even trained in mechanics, especially of such complicated nature as Van Rijn’s. She was always curious of the workings of her body, but pursuing it scared her, she wanted to ignore the fact that she was partly a machine, she could not run from that anymore, she was all machine.  
She spent a few days reading when Tarvek knocked on the door of the room she had sequestered. It was close to Tarvek’s in case Mr. Obsidian escaped, which he had a few times but despite how qualified he was, Tarvek with time to prepare was a force to be reckoned with.

“Come in,” She said.

Tarvek walked in rather bashfully, “Um..Anevka..are you…alright?” He seemed so genuine.

“I’m fine Tarvek,” She said with no emotion.

He got closer, “You just seem…troubled.”

She backed up, “I’m sure you can imagine why,” She responded.

He got even closer “Is there anything I can do?” He asked. God, she hated how he was serious.

She backed into the corner of the room, “No Tarvek, I DIED!, NO WORSE I DIDN’T EVEN GET TO DIE BECAUSE I’M NOT EVEN ALIVE!” She screamed, pushing her artificial voice box to its limits.

Tarvek went to hug her, something he was unused to, but he had heard it’s what you’re supposed to do in a situation like this, and she tried to push away, but this body was a prototype, unpolished, and unpredictable. She threw him across the room. He landed with a massive crash.

Several emotions passed on Anevka’s face, anger, regret, fear, and finally panic. 

“T-Tarvek I- I didn’t meant to I- this body it isn’t fully calibrated I’m s- sorr-” Then she ran off.

Tarvek was actually fine, but with the way she was acting he was scared she’d throw herself off the airship or something equally reckless, so he chased after her. Fortunately, she just ran into a room that didn’t even have windows.

“Anevka I’m fine, I’m not angry, I know it was an accident,” Tarvek called outside the door.

“Go away” Anevka cried.

“I’m worried about you,” He said.

“I know” She replied, and the thing that drove her crazy was that she had no idea why he would.


	5. Chapter 5

Tarvek had thought he was worried before, but now he was truly afraid. He heard loud metal clanging inside the room Anevka holed herself up in, she would reply that she was okay if he yelled enough, but he had no idea what she was doing.

Anevka needed to fix her body, that is what she knew she had to do. She couldn’t deal with all these emotions, but they directed her toward something to do. Maybe if she just fixed herself, she would be okay. 

She had gone over Tarvek’s copy of Van Rijn’s notes again and found all the ciphers this time too. They were beginning to make sense to her, she was sure she could at least fix the problem with the excessive force that the body was using.

After three days of bangs and crashes, Tarvek decided enough was enough, he slammed through the locked door with a makeshift battering ram, to find the room stripped of most metal and several parts, she was holding one of her arms and- by god! It was detached. He had assumed she was just breaking things to cope with the stress, but he didn’t think she was going to disassemble hersel- wait, he suddenly realized, she wasn’t destroying herself, she was modifying her body.

“Anevka what are you doing?” Tarvek asked, scared that she was about to kill him, or at least try.

“Well you see I wanted to fix this body’s sense of strength after that incident… you know. But Van Rijn’s works are so delicate, so I made these!” From her fingers came small prehensile wires with small attachments for grabbing small parts. Anevka smiled, Tarvek hadn’t seen her do that yet. 

“But it’s still hard to modify parts of my body that I can’t reach so I made this,” Anevka’s words were slurring together. She sat down in what looked almost like a throne with a large machine attached above it, it connected to a slot in Anevka’s head and wires similar to the ones in her hand descended and rapidly began reattaching her arm. It only took it five minutes. It would have taken Tarvek hours to accomplish such a task and he had studied Van Rijn for years.

“What..else have you done?” Tarvek managed to ask.

“I’m glad you asked!” Anevka beamed. “I improved my electrical defense, as well as did some ground work on a more expressive face plate using your notes on the previous version, thank you for that by the way.”

Tarvek lightly grabbed Anevka’s hand to analyze the work she had done, but let go almost immediately, “Anevka.. you’re warm?”

“Oh yes I put a layer of aluminum und the surface layer to act as a heat sink and emulate human body temperature! Form and function-” Anevka looked puzzled for a second, “Tarvek why are you looking at me like that”

“Anevka you’re breaking through!”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I' m having a lot of fun writing this, I hope it isn't too convoluted!

Anevka looked puzzled. “What do you mean.”

“Anevka, you’re breaking through you’re a spark!” Tarvek replied.

“I don’t even have a brain Tarvek,” Anevka said.

“Of course, you do, just because it’s inorganic doesn’t mean it can’t carry the spark, admittedly this is new territory though.” Tarvek then began to start talking to himself about the scientific implications, which is when Anevka stopped listening.

“Whatever,” said Anevka, secretly hoping it was true. She had never felt jealous of sparks before, but being a spark seemed like something you had to be alive to do, and she really, really wanted to believe she was alive. “Now hand me that wrench, I want to finish this face plate.”

“Spoken like a true madgirl,” Tarvek said, with a slight smirk. 

Tarvek was very helpful in finishing the face plate since it was his work after all, but Anevka couldn’t help noticing that he was analyzing her, she figured he wanted to see if she had removed the failsafes, and she couldn’t really blame him. Unfortunately for him he couldn’t do something like that subtly, he would have to analyze the processing unit that was her “brain”.

After it was done, she hooked herself into the machine she had made for making changes to her body, that she was now referring to as the “fine manipulator”. Several wires came down from the apparatus above the seat and carefully removed her current face, and then attached the new one.

Anevka could have potentially seen behind the machine, there were several visual inputs attached around it so that she could see what she was doing, but her concentration was on the work, so what she did not see was Tarvek go behind it. 

Tarvek just tweaked a few parameters in the machine that made it unable to remove the aforementioned failsafes. “It never hurts to make sure,” he thought to himself.

Anevka was done shortly and then she rushed to the bathroom to look in the mirro. It was far more expressive, and she felt more like “herself” even if she didn’t know who that was exactly. She made faces in the mirror for a few minutes until walking back to show Tarvek, she figured he would want to see the fruits of his labor. 

“It looks good Anevka!” He said. 

“Thank,” Anevka began, then her tone changed to something far sadder, “you”

She began to cry. Tarvek was surprised since she couldn’t do that before, he suddenly felt foolish for not making that a feature. Then he was surprised because she was crying.

“Anevka, what’s wrong?” He wasn’t used to comforting people, he probably never would be, but he was going to try.

“I thought…I thought if I just made myself better I – I wouldn’t feel this way!” She began to sob.

Tarvek held her for a while.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that it's taken me a bit longer to post. (just a reminder since it's only mentioned once Tarvek and Anevka's grandmother is named Terebithia.)

They spent the last week on the airship lightly talking, well actually Tarvek did most of it. Anevka was feeling better, but she still hadn’t been in the talking mood. He told her a lot about Agatha. Anevka thought she sounded remarkable but was not looking forward to meeting her again since she had publicly entertained killing her, and stole her voice, which she thought might be a bit of a social faux pas, even though she had of course reverted to her original voice. She also asked him more about Van Rijn and his work and what had happened while she was offline. He was a useful teacher.

Anevka was ruing landing in Paris, she was still worried what grandmother would think about her… situation. Tarvek had noticed that she had a new nervous tick now that she was a spark, when she was stressed the prehensile wires in her hands would come out and begin to build little clockwork objects, nothing complex usually just very simple wind up toys and ornithopters, but as the day approached the ship was beginning to pile up with the things.

When they were about to land Anevka began going through the clothes Tarvek had originally brought her. She chose a red gown with tight fitting sleeves. She began styling the wig she had been wearing all week, it was long, extremely straight, and the same bright red as Tarvek’s hair, she was making the bangs sweep dramatically to her right.

“You know I’ve always wanted to wear my hair like this, but curls were always in style.” She said to Tarvek while she adjusted the fringe.

“It looks nice,” He said, always the flatterer.

Their ship touched down just outside of the estate, and they walked with Mr. Obsidian’s hands not tied, but bolted together. They entered the building.

“Hello Grandmother,”

The matriarch of the family, Terebithia, expected to see Tarvek tied up behind her so she was understandably shocked to see Mr. Obsidian. 

“Mr. Obsidian please explain how you, one of my most qualified men, were captured.”  
“My apologies your majesty, but Prince Tarvek had an unexpected guest.”

“Whoever coul-“ Terebithia began before Anevka walked in behind Tarvek.

“Hello Grandmother.” Anevka said, with a hardened expression, not unfriendly, but unyielding. As any member of the family usually would be.

“Anevka, dear, is that you!” She rushed to hug her, “How long have you been awake?”

Anevka wasn’t expecting this kind of response, she was an abomination of science, and yes that was par for the course in this world, but that didn’t mean grandmother had to like it, but she didn’t seem too disturbed.

“Now please tell me dear that you aren’t here to try and argue your right to inherit Sturmhalten because dead is dead, fair is fair, those are the rules.

“Grandmother!” Tarvek began exclaiming.

“It’s okay Tarvek,” Anevka said. “Don’t worry Grandmother I have no intention of upsetting the fifty families.”

“Oh good, I do so love it when my Grandchildren don’t start any wars!”, she then paused and grinned. “Except, of course, when I want them to”

She continued, “Now then I had a costume prepared for you Tarvek, but I’ll have to fish out one of my old costumes for you Anevka.”

“Oh no. This party is for Martellus isn’t it? I’m not going it would look like I supported his claim.”

“Don’t think me a fool, it’s a masquerade. You’ll be going incognito. Very few people know you’re back.” She shot a glance at Anevka. “And even fewer know about you. I’d like to keep it that way for a little while. But you two should be there, you’ll find it… educational.”  
Terebithia went to go retrieve the costumes and came back a few minutes later. She handed Tavek’s to him and he immediately held up the garish jester costume and looked incredulously at her.

“Seriously Grandmother?”

“It’s the waiter uniform,” She replied nonchalantly.

Tarvek looked like he was about to combust, but his Grandmother didn’t dress people badly without good purpose.

Then she turned to Anevka and pulled out an orange butterfly mask with a winged cape and few golden accessories.

“You’ll barely have to change,” She smiled, “These go so well with what you’re wearing.”

Tarvek and Anevka went to different rooms to change, but before Tarvek close the door Terebithia walked through .

“So, you woke her up,” She said in a hushed tone. “Really Tarvek you are so sentimental.”

He was about to very angrily start defending Anevka when she continued.

“You’re just like you grandfather.” And then she pinched his cheek, and he realized she didn’t necessarily mean it in a bad way.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that it's been a bit since I last posted I had such a busy week! This is also kinda rough, so sorry about that as well, it's difficult to recap events that happened in the comic without just assuming that you all remember it perfectly. There will hopefully be another chapter this weekend!!

Tarvek pretended to be a waiter, and he hated every minute of it, but you did not survive long in this family if you couldn’t be a good actor.

Anevka danced, she was also acting. Grandmother had thankfully given her gloves for her costume so no one could feel the texture of her hands as she danced with them, she may have modified her body so that it was warm, but it was still metal.

She tried to circle back to Tarvek every now and then, but she had to maintain distance. There were to many eyes, that were watching with extreme attention.

That is until the Queen of Dawn showed up. Anevka had never heard of her and Tarvek hadn’t mentioned her when he was catching her up on current events, but her ears were better than a human’s and she heard what people were saying about her, all likely false or mostly false, but it showed true skill that she got the public to believe them.

She got a little closer to Tarvek as he went up to grandmother and heard him say:  
“This “Queen of Dawn”, I could swear that she’s actually Zola Malfeazium.”

Now that name Tarvek had told her about. Then Grandmother dismissed him by pretending to beat him with her staff, or at least Anevka hoped she was pretending.

Martellus and the Queen of Dawn met halfway, when Anevka also heard Collette Voltaire say her father was coming, Anevka almost reacted, but managed to control her expression to not give anything away to her dance partner. She had been bouncing between random partners all night, making small talk, and pretending to be coy when they asked her name.

When the Geisterdamen started descending on the party, Anevka was almost annoyed at how ridiculous this was getting.

“What an eventful night,” She said sardonically.

Tarvek saved Grandmother from the crowd and they started following Colette who had left moments earlier, and Tarvek made the subtlest motion to beckon her.  
She discreetly followed him, and as she approached, she saw Colette hooked into a street lamp. She was extremely interested in what she was doing but avoided making a fool of herself by just observing. 

“Tarvek!? It can’t be, not in that outfit.” Exclaimed Xerxsephnia. As Anevka approached, she continued, “And who has the nerve to attend with a costume in the same theme as me,” she was remarking on the fact that both of their costumes had a butterfly motif. “Wait that’s Grandmama’s old costume from the Winter Gala!”

“Hello Xerxsephnia.” Said Anevka plainly.

“Is that…Anevka!?” She cried, and then immediately hid behind Colette. It wasn’t necessarily that she was scared of Anevka because she was a clank, but rather that she was a member of the Sturmvoraus house with nothing to lose and a body that could electrocute people at will.

“Cherie, who is this?” Asked Colette.

“Oh, that’s my cousin Anevka.” Said Xerxsephnia, casually as if she was not hiding behind her.

“The dead one?”

“Not precisely,” Said Anevka.

Colette shook her head. “As much as I would love to inquire further, I have a city to run, Tarvek you can check the green lines while I try to realign the blue and silver protocols.”

They began to pour over the mechanical systems of Paris, Tarvek explaining the many clubs he had attended devoted to learning about how the master runs Paris, when Colette found an intelligence within the system interfering with her connection, she pointed out that it was not a clank operating in physical space and you could see Anevka’s face twitch the tiniest bit.

Fortunately for Anevka, this topic passed quickly as the Master of Paris had appeared.


End file.
